


amber like the warmth of a setting sun

by jjokkiri



Category: UP10TION
Genre: Child!Hwanhee, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hwanhee Is Jinhyuk's Son, Implied Relationships, M/M, Other UP10TION Members Briefly Make Appearances As Children, Single Parents, to some degree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26994184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri
Summary: Lee Hwanhee (7) thinks that Kim Wooseok (27) is the prettiest man he has ever seen in his life and he is determined to make his dad think so, too.
Relationships: Kim Wooseok | Wooshin/Lee Jinhyuk
Comments: 10
Kudos: 79
Collections: Flower Born From Fire Fic Fest





	amber like the warmth of a setting sun

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt #154** —Architect!Wooseok who's designing a new home for a client who's a single dad. And his client's kid has a lot of ideas about Wooseok's (nonexistent) dating life. namely setting Wooseok up with his dad.

Lee Hwanhee, seven, may not be able to remember how to properly tie his shoes, but he remembers the first time he met Kim Wooseok very well.

He remembers that Wooseok comes into his life like a blazing ray of light, shining so brightly that he has to cover his face a little bit and squint when he looks at him. And while Hwanhee peeks at the light through his tiny fingers, he sees his father’s cheeks turn pink—maybe from the warmth of the sun. The sun being Wooseok because they’re indoors when he meets Kim Wooseok for the first time.

He remembers the first time they met Wooseok really well because, after they meet him, they see him for a long time. Jinhyuk, his father, tells him that Wooseok is helping them build a home. Jinhyuk tells him that Wooseok will be with them for a while because he isn’t someone who is meant to come and go so quickly.

Hwanhee decides he likes that. He likes Wooseok.

He thinks Wooseok is the prettiest man he has ever seen in all his seven years of life.

He remembers that the first time they meet, Wooseok’s secretary—a very nice man who introduces himself as Changhyun—leads them down a long hallway and directs them to the first room on the left. The door is open and inviting and Hwanhee wants to run in. Jinhyuk stops before he steps in the room, though. He stops to fix his tie before he walks into the office.

The office is spacious and neat. As soon as they step into the room, they are greeted by the pretty man sitting at his desk in the center of the room.

And while Jinhyuk looks shocked to see him, Hwanhee’s attention is captured by everything in the room—the flowers on his desk and the pretty paintings on the walls.

He spins in circles, looking around until Jinhyuk holds him steady and scolds him for being so hyperactive in front of Wooseok.

Hwanhee remembers thinking that he doesn’t see any crayons in the spacious office—he doesn’t understand how the pretty man can draw houses without crayons.

When he looks at his father, though, there’s something off.

Hwanhee doesn’t know what is on Jinhyuk’s mind but he knows that his attention is somewhere else. He has never seen his father look so stunned when shaking someone’s hand and he has never heard his father stumble over his words when he introduces himself. There’s a knowing smile on Wooseok’s face when Jinhyuk introduces himself.

 _It’s kind of funny,_ Hwanhee thinks. Hwanhee giggles at him when Jinhyuk says his own name, the tone of his voice and his posture a little too stiff.

Wooseok shakes Hwanhee’s hand, too. He crouches down and offers him his hand. Hwanhee doesn’t stumble over his words when he proudly tells Wooseok that his name is _Lee Hwanhee._

He thinks that Wooseok is the prettiest man he has ever seen—even prettier than Hwanhee’s first-grade teacher (and that’s saying something because Teacher Jinwook is _very_ pretty!).

Wooseok is pretty and he says a lot of things that Hwanhee doesn’t understand.

It’s okay, though, because Jinhyuk understands everything perfectly fine. Jinhyuk doesn’t look confused when Wooseok talks, Hwanhee notes. He looks back and forth between his father and Wooseok as they speak, swinging his legs under the soft cushion of the chair.

Hwanhee zones out of the conversation soon enough, too bored of trying to follow something he doesn’t understand.

He reaches over to Jinhyuk’s chair and pulls Jinhyuk’s phone out of his jacket. Barely paying attention, Jinhyuk reaches into his pocket to fish out his phone for Hwanhee.

The child settles back into his seat and launches a game on the device.

His attention comes back to the conversing adults when Wooseok reaches over the desk and takes back a pen he handed to Jinhyuk. Hwanhee didn’t notice them getting up to exchange the items. He watches them, quietly.

“Awesome,” Wooseok says. He taps the end of the pen against the clipboard in his hands and smiles at them, “Do you have any other questions for me?”

At that, Hwanhee’s eyes brighten. He sits up straight in his chair. Hwanhee drops Jinhyuk’s phone into his lap and patiently raises his hand like he’s in class.

He waits patiently to be picked.

Wooseok blinks, looking a little taken aback by the little boy’s actions.

“Yes?” Wooseok asks, “What’s your question, little guy?”

Hwanhee beams at him.

“Mister Wooseok, do you have a boyfriend?”

Hwanhee thinks Wooseok doesn’t look silly when his face flushes red. He’s still pretty.

(He thinks he sees Jinhyuk’s face reddening from the corner of his eye, too.)

* * *

Hwanhee doesn’t actually understand why Jinhyuk gets so flustered when he mentions the architect.

He makes a habit of talking about the pretty architect with his father. Sometimes, it’s in the middle of the day. Sometimes, it’s sudden enough to shock the living daylights out of Jinhyuk.

“Daddy, don’t you think Mister Wooseok is so pretty?” he asks when Jinhyuk is stirring a pot on the stove. Hwanhee peers up at him over the top of the dinner table with wide, innocent eyes.

“Mister Wooseok?” Jinhyuk asks, his eyes wide.

His cheeks are pink and it reminds Hwanhee of when his fourth-grade friend, Minsoo, coaxed him into bringing a bouquet of flowers to his pretty friend who was singing at the talent show. Minsoo’s face was bright pink when he complimented Yein on his singing.

Jinhyuk, Hwanhee thinks, looks like that.

Except Jinhyuk doesn’t say anything. His face is just pink and he looks shy.

“Yeah,” Hwanhee says, grinning. “I think he’s super pretty!”

He sounds so proud of his thoughts that Jinhyuk can’t help but agree aloud.

“He is,” he says. “He’s always been so pretty.”

Hwanhee beams at him.

“Minsoo hyung says he wants to hold Yein hyung’s hand because he’s pretty,” he says, a matter of fact. “Do you want to hold Mister Wooseok’s hand, too, daddy?”

It catches him off guard. And in his shock, he nods.

The admission leaves Jinhyuk so flustered that he can’t look Wooseok directly in the eyes at the next meeting in his office. Hwanhee hardly notices it.

* * *

At some point, they start to see Wooseok a lot more.

At some point in time, Wooseok starts having a small box of crayons on his desk and sheets of loose-leaf papers lying around. At some point, he offers the crayons to Hwanhee and promises that he can help him draw their new home. He promises that he’ll do his best to incorporate Hwanhee’s drawings into the floor plan for the home.

Starry-eyed, Hwanhee always picks a different coloured crayon.

Sometimes, Jinhyuk leaves to the coffee shop across the street from the firm for a brief moment to get some coffee for himself and Wooseok (and a small hot chocolate for Hwanhee because any more sugar would mean he wouldn’t sleep that night).

Sometimes, Hwanhee tags along with his father to beg for a donut instead of hot chocolate.

Other times, he pleads for Jinhyuk to leave him in Wooseok’s office until he comes back. He’ll beg to stay with Wooseok in the office and Jinhyuk will look uncertainly at Wooseok, refusing to leave his son behind because he doesn’t want to bother Wooseok. And every time, Wooseok will laugh and say, _‘What? I can watch my friend’s son for a bit if he’s going to buy me coffee. I owe you a few favours, Jinhyuk.’_

Jinhyuk backs down every time.

This time, he asked to stay with Wooseok in his office and it was _too_ easy for Wooseok to shoo him away with the promise that he would take good care of his son while he was gone. (“If he’s anything like you when you were in high school, I know how to deal with him,” Wooseok said with a roll of his eyes.)

Hwanhee gets bored quickly, though. _Typical of a child._

He peers over the top of Wooseok’s desk, abandoning his drawing and crayon.

“Do you have games on your phone?” he asks.

Wooseok looks up from his sketch with a surprised look on his face.

“You don’t want to draw anymore?” Wooseok asks. He frowns a little.

Hwanhee plays with one of the purple crayons on the desk and he shakes his head. “I’m done.”

Wooseok glances over at his sheet of paper and his lips curve into a small smile. His eyes twinkle with adoration and Hwanhee doesn’t learn what that means until he’s much older.

“That looks fantastic, Hwanhee,” he says.

The lines drawn on the sheet of paper are crooked and Wooseok isn’t exactly sure what it’s supposed to be, but his fondness overthrows the need to know what he was looking at.

“Thank you,” Hwanhee replies. Pridefully, he beams at the sheet of paper. Then, as an afterthought, he carefully writes his name in the corner of the sheet with the purple crayon.

Then, he falls back on his chair. He crosses his arms over his chest and stares at the open door.

“When is daddy coming back?”

Wooseok chuckles at that. He glances at the clock.

Jinhyuk has been gone for under ten minutes, but he doesn’t expect a child to have any real sense of time.

“Are you getting bored of me already, Hwanhee?” Wooseok teases, resting his elbow against his desk and looking at the child. Hwanhee sniffs.

“No!” he says, “I’m never going to get bored of you! You’re really cool. I want to hang out with you all the time! Me, you and daddy!”

Surprise briefly flickers across Wooseok’s face for a moment.

And then Wooseok’s expression softens; flattered.

Quietly, he says, “I like spending time with you and your dad, too.”

* * *

Wooseok isn’t always patiently waiting for them in his office. He doesn’t have the time for that.

Even for a friend, Wooseok doesn’t have all the time in the world.

Sometimes, when they visit him at his office (scheduled appointment and all), Wooseok is busy with other clients and he can’t accompany them immediately. On those days, Changhyun (Wooseok’s secretary) offers them in the waiting room across from Wooseok’s office with an apologetic smile—profuse apologies for Wooseok being behind schedule. Jinhyuk waves him off every time with a laugh.

Hwanhee notices that his dad waits for Wooseok no matter how long it takes.

Sometimes, he tells Hwanhee that they are just heading to Wooseok’s office to drop off some papers, but he’ll always wait to hand them to Wooseok in person. Hwanhee doesn’t really get it, but he doesn’t mind getting the chance to see Wooseok every time they visit his office.

Hwanhee vividly recalls one instance when Wooseok is over half-an-hour behind schedule and Jinhyuk falls asleep in the waiting room on one of the sofas. Hwanhee remembers fishing his father’s phone out of his jacket pocket and turning the volume down low while he waits.

He remembers Wooseok rushing into the waiting room, fixing his hair and tie before he enters the room.

He remembers Wooseok’s eyes falling onto Jinhyuk and immediately softening. He remembers the way that he sighs and crouches down next to Hwanhee with a small smile.

“Sorry,” he says, “I made you wait for me. Has your dad been sleeping for long?”

Hwanhee shakes his head.

“I only played three games,” Hwanhee says, turning Jinhyuk’s phone to show Wooseok. Wooseok’s lips curve a little more, a fonder smile.

Then, he gets up from his crouched position and moves to the closet behind the sofa. He opens it and pulls out a blanket, folding it over his arm.

He turns back to look at Jinhyuk.

With a resigned sigh, he drapes the blanket over Jinhyuk’s body.

Wooseok brushes Jinhyuk’s fringe out of his eyes and shakes his head.

He turns to look at Hwanhee. Quietly, he asks, “He hasn’t been sleeping well, has he?”

Hwanhee frowns. He lowers the phone and shakes his head.

“Daddy has been working a lot,” he says.

Wooseok’s eyes sweep over Jinhyuk again before he looks at Hwanhee.

Hwanhee’s eyes shift between Wooseok and his dad. His eyes move quickly from the hand Wooseok still has on Jinhyuk’s forehead to Wooseok’s pretty face.

Before Wooseok can say anything more, Hwanhee speaks up.

“Do you think my dad is pretty, Mister Wooseok?”

Wooseok looks a little confused for a second.

Then, Wooseok gives him a funny smile. “What if I do?”

“That’s good,” Hwanhee says, “he thinks you’re pretty too. He wants to hold your hand.”

Wooseok laughs at that—shy and hidden behind his hand.

He smiles, “Is that so?”

Hwanhee nods happily.

Wooseok doesn’t say anything else about that. He simply tells Hwanhee that he can take some blankets out when he is sleepy, too. And Hwanhee doesn’t _want_ to take a nap, but the blankets in Wooseok’s office are so warm and soft. He thinks closing his eyes for just a little while won’t hurt.

* * *

_“Hwanhee, wake up.”_

Wooseok’s voice is soft. Hwanhee is too sleepy under the weight of the blanket to open his eyes, but he recognizes Wooseok’s voice when he calls his name.

Hwanhee curls up closer to the warmth of the blanket and scrunches up his nose. He hears someone quietly laugh before he feels himself be lifted off the sofa. Half-buried in his slumber, Hwanhee barely hears the conversation whispered so close to him.

“I’ll take him home, now. It’s okay, we don’t have to wake him up.” _That’s Jinhyuk._ “Thanks for the blanket and watching over us, Wooseok. I’ll return it when I can.”

Wooseok laughs.

“Anytime,” Wooseok replies. Hwanhee feels Wooseok’s fingers gently run through his hair, affectionately. He continues, “You don’t have to return the blanket to me. I have plenty more and what are friends for if not something like this, Jinhyuk.”

Jinhyuk hesitates for a moment, shifting Hwanhee on his shoulder.

“Is this what friends do?” Jinhyuk asks.

“You really haven’t changed at all, Jinhyuk,” Wooseok says.

Hwanhee doesn’t hear the rest of that conversation.

* * *

Even after Wooseok tells them that the blueprints for their new home have been finalized, Hwanhee still sees him around. Even after Wooseok tells them that there isn’t a need for them to keep coming to his office, they still see him around.

Sometimes, Jinhyuk picks Hwanhee up from school and they drop by Wooseok’s office to pick him up, too. Sometimes, Wooseok is already in the passenger seat when they pick him up.

He doesn’t mind it.

Sometimes, Wooseok brings him gifts and stays over late enough to tuck Hwanhee in and kiss his forehead goodnight. He has prettier dreams on those nights.

There are moments where he thinks he sees Jinhyuk holding Wooseok’s hand, but he doesn’t ask about it. He knows that Jinhyuk thinks Wooseok is pretty. He knows you want to hold hands when you think someone is pretty.

He wants to hold their hands, too. And he does.

There are days when Jinhyuk takes him to the park and Wooseok is with them. On those days, Hwanhee walks between them and holds their hands, excitedly swinging them together.

He never catches the flush on their cheeks.

But Hwanhee thinks, maybe this is why his father said that Wooseok isn’t someone who is meant to come and go. He decides, he doesn’t mind it if Wooseok stays around them for a long time.

Besides, the house feels a lot warmer with another person making his father laugh.


End file.
